


Being Daniel, Being There

by jdjunkie



Category: Stargate SG-1/Stargate Universe
Genre: Episode Related, M/M, Missing Scene, Stargate Universe Subversion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-13
Updated: 2010-08-13
Packaged: 2017-10-11 01:56:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/107046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdjunkie/pseuds/jdjunkie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack knows who to turn to when he needs someone he can rely on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Being Daniel, Being There

The door clicked softly shut behind Young, putting an end to the tense three-way discourse between Jack, Young and Daniel, but leaving Daniel’s question still hanging in the air.

Daniel’s pesky, probing, thought-provoking question. The latest in a long line stretching back more than a decade.

_“He still has rights, doesn’t he?”_

Jack shifted in his chair. Damn thing was nowhere near as comfortable as the one he inherited and then left behind at the SGC.

“Don’t give me the look, Daniel.” God, he felt tired. There was too much going on to get involved in this shit with him.

“Look? What look?” Daniel frowned. It made him look adorably fuckable, and Jack’s office in the Pentagon wasn’t really the place for Jack to be thinking that.

Jack screwed up his face and waved his hand in Daniel’s general direction. “You know the look. The one that says, ‘I’m right, you know I am but I know you won’t do a damned thing about it.’ That look.”

Daniel shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and leaned against the wall, sighing. “Come on, Jack. You’d be disappointed if I didn’t give you _the look_. Isn’t this how we work? You lay it out, I question, you make the command decision, I raise my eyebrows, the job gets done and then we all go home.”

“Apparently. I mean, that is how it’s worked for as long as I can remember. From Colonel to Lieutenant General.”

“From long hair to short, from round glasses to square.”

Jack smiled. All those questions and decisions. All that history, everything Daniel brought to bear down the years. 

All the times Jack needed Daniel to be Daniel.

“_Their whole world is in flames and we’re offering gasoline. How is that help?” _Daniel being Daniel.The memory of Euronda was still sharp and difficult, all these years later, and screw it for popping into his head at this precise moment.

“You keep me honest, Dr. Jackson.” Jack leaned back, the chair creaking and groaning. Sounded a bit like his knees on a bad morning.

“I keep you thinking. You keep yourself honest.” Daniel hunched his shoulders. Jack knew he hated the Pentagon.  Jack wondered, and not for the first time, how close Daniel was to trading in his suits, and occasionally these days his BDUs, for the garb of an archaeologist. He knew well enough what, _who,_ was keeping him with the program. In his darkest moments, he just wondered if he was enough any more.

“Thanks for helping out,” Jack settled for saying, eyes raking Daniel’s body because they could. The man was getting unbearably hotter as he got older. Jack was just getting older. And wearier.

But Daniel was still there, across the desk, being Daniel, just the way he needed him to be.

“You’re welcome. I wasn’t doing anything much. Sorting our laundry, including the sheets,” he tilted his head, eyes smiling and teasing. Bastard. Clean sheets were very much in order after last night. Maybe not so old and not so weary after all. Still had the energy to make Daniel sob out his name and clutch the sheets and spill all over them as he was fucked.

“All your jackets in the laundry, too, huh?” Jack eyed his own leather jacket , the one that Daniel was wearing so beautifully. Damn if it didn’t look better on him.

“Nope. Just like wearing your stuff. Gives me a cheap thrill. No one here knows it’s yours. I get to wear it, smell you on it, wrap myself in it. Gives me a buzz.” Now he was outright smoldering and Jack’s cock was twitching. It was all edging towards wholly inappropriate, and damn if Jack didn’t get a buzz from _that._

Daniel had a record of wearing Jack’s stuff, right back to that first night when he’d returned from Abydos and Jack had taken him home, confused and hurting. He’d picked up Jack’s jacket from the couch before they set off for the Mountain and the briefing that ended with Daniel joining SG-1 the following morning. Jack hadn’t called him on it. Had been kind of moved by it, actually.

Jack shook his head fondly. “Okay, conversation to be continued anywhere but here.”

Daniel leaned away from the wall. “Can I go now?”

Jack gripped the edge of the desk to stop him from walking over and kissing him goodbye.

“You can.”

“Be home for dinner?”

“Hope so. I’ll call. Depends on what goes down here or ...” He raised his eyes heavenwards. Destiny-wards.

Daniel adjusted his glasses, always a sign of irritation. “Fucking communication stones,” he muttered savagely. Jack thought he saw him shiver.

Yeah. All that history.

“I’ll call,” Jack said again, softly.

“Yeah,” Daniel said. He smiled, shrugged further into the jacket and left the office.

The room felt smaller and emptier without him. But Jack knew he’d go home to find Daniel being Daniel, and, when he did, Jack could finally be Jack.


End file.
